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SPEECH 



JOSEPH T. CROWELL, 



OF UNION OOXnSTTY, 



SENATE OF NEW JERSEY, 



JANUARY 22, 1863, 



ON THE MOTION TO POSTPONE INDEFINITELY 



THE ANTI-WAR RESOLUTIONS 



Hon. 33A1VIEL HOLSlVtATV, 



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OF BEROEN. 



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THE DEMOCRACY NOT SUBMISSIONISTS. 



SPEECH OF JOS. T. CROWELL, 

AGAINST THE ANTI-WAR RESOLUTIONS, 
Trenton, January 22, 1863. 



Mr. President: I shall vote for the motion to postpone these resolu- 
tions indefinitely. I shall give that vote on the ground that such dispo- 
sition will be equal to their emphatic condemnation by the Senate. I 
take occasion, however, to say in this connection, that there are some 
points embraced in the I'csolutions which meet my approval : But the 
most important matter embraced, the peace propositions meet my xm- 
qualified disapprobation, and I propose at this time to express my views 
on the question. 

Me. Holsman here arose and raised a point of order that it was not proper 
to discuss the merits of the resokitions, on the motion to postpone indefinitely. 

The President of the Senate decided the point not well taken, and that the 
Senator from Union was speaking in order. 

I shall not attempt to affirm or controvert the wholesale charges in 
the resolutions of unconstitutionality, against almost eveiy act of the 
administration — many of these acts I consider unwise and distasteful to 
a large portion of the people of the loyal States. That they were hon- 
estly deemed necessary to suppress the Rebellion, I cannot permit my- 
self to doubt. Temporarily, they have produced a baneful result. 
Time alone can tell whether they will prove ultimately of any service in 
suppressing the Rebellion, or whether the salvation of our country will 
require a change of policj'. As to the question of unconstitutionality, 
that is a matter for the Judiciary Department of the government to de- 
cide. The official acts of the Executive, and the laws of Congress, are 
the supreme law of the land, until decided as unconstitutional by the high- 
est judicial tribunal. 

I shall confine my remarks particularly to the assumption in these 
resolutions, "that the people of New Jersey and the gallant volunteers in 
the field believe the time for honorable pacification has arrived :" and 
to the propositions for "an armistice for six months, and the election of 



delegates to a convention to discuss such measures of amicable settle- 
ment as shall be presented." 

It is a libel on tlie people of New Jersey to assert "that they believe 
the time for honorable pacification has arrived." It is a libel on our gal- 
lant volunteers to assume them to be so spiritless and cowardly, as to 
believe '" the time for peace has arrived," while the bayonets of traitors 
are pointed at their breasts ; and should you pass these resolutions, you 
will hear from the brave soldiers of New Jersey the reverberations of a 
'• dismal universal hiss." 

What, Su-, has recently occurred to make pacification or proposals 
for peace more honorable now than when the Rebels commenced war 
against the best of governments ? Have our armies re-occupied the Forts 
and Arsenals belonging to the government ? Have the laws of the Union 
been enforced in rebel States ? Do the rebels agree to come back into 
the Union? Are they in favor of an armistice to arrange terms of re- 
union ? Certainly not. 

And what evidence have we that the people of Xew Jersey, or her 
warriors, are in fiivor of dishonorable peace proposals while the rebels 
remain in the same rebellious attitude, and as defiant as ever ? None, 
whatever. 

The result of the recent elections, it has been said, was a condemna- 
tion of the Avar. I deny the assertion. The Democracy went into the 
late canvass as a war party, ix favor of a. more vigorous prosecution of 
THE contest, to i^cstorc the Union as it was and maintain the Constitution 
as it is. " When the rebels acknowledge the supremacy of the Consti- 
tution, and return to their allegiance to the Government, the war ought 
to cease." So said Joel Parker, om- Governor, before the election. And 
the Convention which placed him in nomination unanimously 

Resolved, "That in the present exigencies of the country, we extend to the National Adniiu- 
istration our most cordial support for the speedy suppression of the Rebellion by all Constitu- 
tional means — and that the party stands as it has ever stood since the formation of the Gov- 
ernment, for the Union, the Constitution, and enforcement of the Laws." 

Notwithstanding the Democratic party was then fully commit ted to 
the policy of prosecuting the war until the supremacy of the Constitu- 
tion was acknowledged in the rebellious States by the platforms of the 
party conventions and speeches in the canvass, yet as soon as the vote 
was announced, the Peace Democrats claimed the result of the election 
as an anti-war triumph. The Newark Journal of a recent date, in an ar- 
ticle on the Democracy and the war, says that to" assume the Democratic 
citizens of the Central and Western States enlisted warmly in the war is 
a fallacy," and that the late elections had vindicated their true sentiment; 
and further the editor says : 

" No one can doubt that the great Democratic party is to-day a pledged anti-war party, or 
that Governors Seymour and Parker are the legitimate representatives of this interest." 



The politicians and editors who take this position are no new con- 
verts — they are the men who have denounced the war from the begin- 
ning, who adopted the fallacious doctrine of Buchanan that you could 
not coerce a State, and the equally pernicious heresy that the power of 
Secession was one of the reserved rights of the States. Peace resolu- 
tions, very like those before us, were adopted by the Breckinridge State 
Central Committee of New York ; and there is a remarkable similarity 
to these resolutions, as will be seen by the following, adopted at Albany, 
in August, 1861 : 

Resolved, That we advocato the proposition for an armistice between the now contending 
armies North and South, and the immediate convocation of a convention of delegates from all 
the States which aclcnowledgod themselves members of the Union in November, 1860, to the 
end that all differences may be peacefully adjusted, our land saved from bloodshed and re- 
stored to peace, concord and union. 

Similar resolutions were adopted at Peace meetings in our own State 
and Pennsylvania, and the organ of the Newark Democracj' proclaimed 
itself for Peace, •" because, if tlie North can conquer the South, our re- 
publican institutions and popular liberties will be swept away." 

The claim that the recent elections have proven that the people are 
opposed to a further prosecution of the war cannot be sustained. A 
combination of causes produced the political revolution in the North. 
Excessive taxation, extravagant expenditures, arbitrary arrests of politi- 
cal offenders, the alleged abandonment of the object of the war to in- 
augurate a new crusade by the emancipation proclamation — the military 
failures, and the general want of confidence in the administration — these 
are the causes ; and to me it appears the hight of impiidence for those 
anti-war men to assume the defeat of the administration as an approval 
of their Secessionism, or an endorsement of this Convention peace pro- 
gramme. 

But it is argued, a Conventiou is necessary to guarantee the people of 
the South all their rights under the Constitution. It is no wonder the 
rebels ask us if we " are all natural-born fools." They told us when tbey 
seceded they would not remain in the Union if we would give them a 
blank sheet and let them dictate their own terms. The leaders of the 
rebellion have told us over and over that they had been working for 
disunion all their lives. In the House of Representatives, in December, 
1860, when an effort was being made to raise a committee with the view 
of compromising the difficulties which threatened the country, Mr. Haw- 
kins, of Florida, said he would not vote to raise a committee for that 
purpose, " for I am opposed, and I believe my State is, to all and every 
compromise." Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, said : "I was not sent here 
to make any compromise, or to patch up existing difficulties." Mr. 
Miles, of South Carolina, announced that "South Carolina would go out 
of the Union on the 17th instant." ^Ir. Pugh, of Alabama, said : " As my 



State of Alabama intends following South Carolina out of the Union by 
the 10th of January next, I pay no attention to any action in this body." 
During the same week, Alfked Ivesox, a Senator from Georgia, an- 
nounced : 

'• You may tinker the Constitution, if you pleasu ; you may propose concessions ; you may 
suggest additional legislation; you may present additional constitutional securities ; you may 
attempt by all these ingenious devices to stay the storm which now rages in the Southern 
States, to prevent that people from marching on to the deliverante and liberty upon which 
they are resolved ; but, Sir, the words "too late" that ring here to-day will be reiterated 
from mountain to valley in all the South, ami are now sounding the death Icuell of the Federal 
Union."' 

The declaration of the notorious Yancey, in his speech in the State 
Convention of Alabama, is equally uncompromising. He said : 

"I avow myself as utterly, unalterably, opposed to any and all plans of reconstructing a 
Union Willi the Black Republican States of the North. No new guarantees, no amendments of 
the Constitution, no peaceful resolutions, no repeal of offensive laws, can offer me any, the 
least, inducement to reconstruct our relations with the non-slaveholding States." 

All these declarations were made while the states in rebellion were 
preparing to secede. Two years have elapsed — two years of war, the 
most sanguinary. Thousands of lives have been sacrificed, and millions 
of treasure expended, and now a proposition is made for an armistice 
and a convention to discuss measures of amicable settlement. 

And how are these propositions received by the Rebels ? With con- 
tumely and scorn. Tliey will recognize no propositions for peace except 
coupled with terms of separation ; and no one can read the recent 
speeches of Jrfferson Davis, in connection with the editorials of the 
Southern press, without concluding that further proffers of pacific prop- 
ositions would be disgraceful and cowardly. Davis says they will not 
be the first to cry " hold, enough," and he must have had an inkling of 
these resolutions when he made the declaration. The Richmond Dis- 
patch speaks in reference to the Brooks programme in the following 
complimentary style : 

" Mr. Brooks appears to be in earnest in these extravagant propositions, strange as it may 
appear to any man who has possession of his senses; for, upon the occasion of presenting them, 
he made along speech, and expressed himself confident of their success. Are the northern 
people naturalboru fool.s, or are they only stricken with that judicial madness w^hich we are 
told the gods always inllict upon the victims of their wrath preparatory to their ruin? * * 

"■If tlie whole Yankee race should fall down in the dust to-viorrow and pray us to he their mas- 
ters, we would spurn tliem even as slaves. Our only wish is to be separated from them finally 
ami forever — never to see the face of one of them again — never to hear the voice of another 
Yankee on the south side of tin; Pot;>mac or the north — to have no traffic and no intercourse 
of any description whatever with them. Weare fighting for separation, and we will have it, if 
it costs live life of every man in the Confederate Slates. 

" Wo arc aware that many persons believe that the party of which Brooks and Van Bureii 
are represenlatives, desire and design to restore peace, and that at present they dare not to 
speak out their real sentiments, which are in favor of separation, 'fhey look only to their pockets 
when Ihey preach of reconciliali/m and restoration. If the same object could be effected by oii- 
lircly destroying the people of the southern states, and they thought it as easy to do, they 



would recommoiKl it as the best or all possible policy. I,et thorn bo satisfied, howevar. 
President Davis expressed the sentiment of the entire Confederacy in his speech the other 
night, when he said the people wotiUI sooner unite with a nation of liyeuas than with the de- 
testable and detested Yankee nation. Anything but that. English colonization, French 
vassalage, Russian serfdom, all, all are prel'orablc to any a.ssociation with the Yankees." 

This is a strong dose, but Davis gives it to them just as strong, in 
language equally refined. From his speech to the Mississippi Legisla- 
ture I quote the following choice extract : 

Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with sucli a people, I could no more 
consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves. Let no man hug the delusion that 
there can be renewed association between them. Our enemies are a traditionless and home- 
less race ; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the 
peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and feus of the Xorth of 
Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country ; they 
disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They per- 
secuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America. 

Mr. Holsman again arose and protested that the Senator from Union was not 
in order. 

Mr. Crowell contended he loas in order, and in accordance with the decision 
of the Chair. That the Senator from Bergen was out of order in making a 
second objection after the decision of the Chair had been announced, and no 
appeal taken. 

The President, however, entertained the appeal at this stage, and put the 
question. The vote being taken, the decision of the Chair was not sustained, 
the Republicans, with Mr. Crowell, voting to sustain the decision of the chair, 
and every Democrat voting against the decision. 

Mr. Crowell said he must submit to the decision of the Senate. It was a re- 
markable thing for a point of order to be decided by a strict party vote. It was 
something new for the gag law to be applied in the Senate of New Jersey. He 
should not trouble the Senate further on these resolutions. He would, how- 
ever, publish to the people of New Jersey, what he was not allowed to speak in 
the Senate. 

The foUowing is the concluding portion of the Speech, and which was not de- 
livered in the Senate : 

The newspapers of the South as well as the Secession papers of the 
North, are abusing Governor Seymour for not commencing war on the 
Government at Washington; and they will now probably open their pa- 
per batteries on Governor Parker. I cannot avoid giving another short 
extract from the Richmond Wkig, for the edification of these peace-at- 
any-price pati-iots : 

" The Yankees are very little better than Chinese. They lay the same stress on the jingle 
of their dollars that the Celestials do on the noise of their gongs. Originally endowed with no 
single amiable trait, they have cultivated the arts of money-getting and cheating, until gain 
has become their god, and they imagine it to be omnipotent. With money in their pockets 
won from a generous and chivalrous race, and multitudinous as Norway rats, they are swollen 
with conceit, and they fancied they were fit for empire. And yet they do not possess one gen- 
tlemanly attribute, nor a single talent that qualifies them for war."' 

At Vicksburg a public speaker warns the people against the North- 
ern Conservative Editors, by telling them that : 



'• When ppace is declared you will see them landing by hundreds at your levee, with their 
editorials and speeches in their hands ; they will swarm through our land Wee locusts, eat up our 
substiince, and elbow one side the noble patriots who have sacrificed all for the cause. While 
we are shedding our blood, they are sitting in their easy chairs : let them remain there." 

And bow, Sir, do these defiant leaders, raise their armies ? We would 
suppose that the men liable to military duty would in mass volunteer, if 
this ferocious spirit was so universal. But look at the reality. A des- 
potic conscription act has been enforced over a year ; and no man es- 
capes unless he has a protection paper from the Consul of a foreign na- 
tion, or an exemption pass from the enrolling officers in his pockets. 
The bayonet performs the functions of recruiting officer for Jeffersox 
Davis, as the guillotine did in France during the reign of blood. Sen- 
tinels are posted at the corners of the streets in Southern cities to kid- 
nap every man who cannot give an account of himself and produce 
instantaneous proof of exemption. The Richmond Whig of June 9, 
makes merrj' over the manner in which men are caught to fight : 

" Citizens of ' conscription age ' have at length had the horrors of war brought home to their 
own doors, or, at least, if they venture a few steps outside their doors they find themselves 
surrounded by fearful bayonets and in danger of being carried off into captivity, with a pleas- 
ing pros|3ect of $11 a month and rations of bread and beef. Men of war are posted at the 
street corners, at hotel entrances, at the theatres, at every public place, and as the citizen 
comes along, intent upon business or pleasure, he is saluted with a peremptory " Halt ! show 
your papers !" and if he can't produce them, off he goes to the rendezvous of patriots, to re- 
ceive the first lessons in the art of serving his country. Thus " papers" have become quit** 
an important item in the all'airs of men, and wo be to him who has failed to secure this pvi 
deuce of his right to stay at home. 

There is, I know, a feverish anxiety in the public mind in reference 
to the prosecution of the war, because of a want of confidence in the 
present managers to accomplish any result. Many honest patriots are 
led to believe that we cannot subdue the rebel States, and therefore 
might as well let them go. These men have not studied history or hu- 
man nature. It would be better in the end for us to fight for twenty 
years, and either exterminate the rebels or be ourselves exterminated, 
than to consent to a temporary peace by separation. If we could not 
live amicably as one nation, with a Constitution guaranteeing the rights 
of all, how could we live divided without forever fighting about slaves, 
tariffs, boundaries, and a thousand matters of dispute that would inevi- 
tably arise between nations having fifteen hundred miles of borders. 
An army of one hundred thousand men would be constantly required to 
protect our capital. Free Trade would be the policy of the Southern 
Confederacy, and another army would be necessary to guard our bor- 
ders from smugglers. We should be involved in disputes with the 
nations of Europe, and be compelled to humiliate ourselves by submit- 
ting to degrading indignities or exhausting our resources in mutual con- 
flicts. There is but one course for us — we must fight this thing out : In 



the language of the patriot Jackson, " at every hazard and at every 
sacrifice, this Union must be preserved." 

The idea that we shall have a lasting peace by acknowledging the In- 
dependence of the Rebels ma}' be entertained by some, but Jekfkrsox 
Davis is not one of them. In all his speeches before the people and in 
his messages he energetically urges military jjreparations on a large 
scale, for future security. " Cast your eyes forward," he says in his 
speech in Mississippi, " to that time at the end of the war when peace 
shall nominally be proclaimed— /'or jieace between us and our kated enemij 
ivill be liable to be broken at short intervals for many year^ to come — cast 
your eyes forward to that time, and you will see the necessity for contin- 
ued preparation and unceasing watchfulness." 

But we may be told that it will be impossible to raise more troops, 
and that an attempt to enforce a draft will result in resistance on the 
part of the people. So far as New Jersey is concerned, I have no appre- 
hensions on that score. If the patriotism of our people had not been 
chilled by the same causes which produced the recent political revolu- 
tion, New Jersey would have kept up her credit balance on the muster 
rolls of the army. She is now far ahead of her sister States, New York 
and Pennsylvania. And when Joel Parker calls upon the people of 
New Jersey to furnish her quota of a new requisition, to be raised in 
compliance with Constitutional requirements of the General Government, 
and in accordance with the laws of our State, that call will be responded 
to, and those laws enforced. 

The North is now a house divided against itself on this vital question. 
But this division is not caused by any material change in public senti- 
ment in reference to the prosecution of the war against the rebels. Jt 
is not caused by a desire to give up the contest, and submit to a dis- 
memberment of our country ; it is not caused from despondency occa- 
sioned by the failure of our campaigns ; it has been caused by the 
dissensions and jealousies in the cabinet and in the field; by the vacilla- 
ting course of the President ; by neglecting to pay our volunteers, leaving 
their families to starve or exist on the cold charity of the world ; by 
sending our troops on dangerous voyages in unseaworthy hulks, to be 
cast away on inhospitable shores ; by withholding news of battles, and 
sending false reports of pretended victories ; by keeping colonies of 
troops and civilians in idleness at enormous expense on the Southern 
coasts ; and by a general mismanagement in almost every department of 
the service. 

The people of New Jersey having given an emphatic verdict against 
the Administration, the original anti-war Democrats claim tlie result as a 
peace triumph and ask an armistice. They do not embrace one tenth 
of the members of the party, for the great mass are for prosecuting the 



8 

war until the rebels submit to the authority of the laws, and will stand 
by the Government in all lawful means to crush the Traitors. Yet these 
infatuated and disloyal men are among us, appealing to the people to 
8top the war and let the rebels have full sway. If Jefferson Datis 
should enter Washington to-day with an invading army, many of these 
peace men would hold high carnival to-night and rejoice over the smok- 
ing ruins of the Capitol. They fill our lobbies and bluster in the bar- 
ruoms— they" see nothing but blood in their wine-glasses ," and threaten, in 
their orgies, to bring w.\r to our own hearthstones, if this war on 
THE South is continued much longer. If such language is not treason- 
able, then nothing can be. I conceive all who use such vile speech as 
the blackest of traitors. They are traitors against the State,— traitors 
against the Nation, and traitors against God,— And if they escape pun- 
ishment here, they, 

■' A tliousand years from now, 
Will sit pale jrhosts upon the Stygian shore 
And read their acts in the red light of hell." 

•• But. the Rebels will never surrender," we are told, " and we may as 
well make terms with them now, without further bloodshed." This is 
considered a potent argument by submissionists. I consider it the 
weakest and most cowardly. A rebel army surrenders when it is de- 
feated and cannot escape. Revolutionists submit when they are con- 
quered by the general defeat of their armies. The black flag is raised in 
editorial sanctums, but savages only, who expect and grant no quarter, 
fight under its sable folds. There is no record in modern history, where 
tiie vanquished have not submitted to the victors. There is no such 
record in ancient history, except where a surrender or submission in- 
volved death or personal slavery. The Numantines, who burned their 
houses, killed their wives and children, and destroyed themselves, rather 
than surrender to Scipio Africanus and be enslaved by the Romans, may 
excite tlie admiration, but will never be emulated by modern combat- 
ants. 

'■ The Gordian knot is untied — the bond is broken, we cannot be re- 
united and live in amity," say the war men of the South and the peace 
men of the North. So long as the sparks fly upward, or the dews of 
Heaven descend, strife and discord will reign aiuong men. 

'• Devil with devil damned, lirm concord hold, 
Men only disagree." 

The people of the South have never entertained a sentiment of frater- 
nity toward those of the Northern and Eastern States. They have al- 
ways assumed to be of a superior race. Even the South Carolinians 
turn up their noses at their less pretentious neighbors of North Carolina. 
Vuu cannot find a first class Virginian who is not either a lineal descen- 



dant of Pocahontas or William tho CoiKiiieror. The igiioruiit among 
them, and they liave their full share of that class, think tho nine Laws 
are yet in force, and that witches and (Quakers are still hiiincil in Connec- 
ticut. 

lu a country so extensive as ours, composed of people of ililVerent or- 
igin, diversified habits, and conQicting interests, wo cannot expect fra- 
ternity ; and when reunited, long years will bo reipiired to restore us to 
former fellowship. Yet tho time will como — it may bo in another gene- 
ration ; but if it is not nutd our children's children come ni)on the stage 
of life, they will bless us for transmitting a country and a nation to tln-in, 
even at the expense of a temporary coercive Union. 

SfR : I desire peace as anxiously as any man living, iind I therefore 
wish the war more vigorously prosecuted, until wo put down armed re- 
bellion, and the supremacy of the Constitution is acknowledged. We 
are certain to have perpetual war and perpetual taxation until that pe- 
riod arrives. 

" Base, inJoail tin- iiatiini 

Thatfor its honor veuluros iiul its all." 

And base indeed the citizen who would discoimtenance the prosecu- 
tion of a war for the existence of the nation, because the contest was not 
prosecuted in accordance with the policy of his party. I disapprove of 
many of the acts of the Administration, and think monstrous blunders 
have been committed ; but to stop the war now would involve the de- 
struction of the nation, and be the death blow to Republican institutions. 
We must conquer a peace or surrender our liberties. There is no other 
alternative, and when the rebels arc compelled to submit to the author- 
ity of the laws and acknowledge the supremacy of our Constitution, 
then only and not till then, Avould I permit thcni to return on fair and hon- 
orable conditions ; but untd that period arrives I for one am for a vig- 
orous prosecution of the war, and wish to be classified with the great, 
loyal masses of the people who, as I believe, have pronounced them- 
selves War Democrats. 



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